Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

This conversation is moderated according to USA TODAY's
community rules.
Please read the rules before joining the discussion.

Olympic's Kaira Cabato happy to be back on the field

George Edgar, Special to the Kitsap Sun
Published 11:31 a.m. PT April 20, 2018

Buy Photo

Kaira Cabato of Olympic catches a ball during warm-ups under the watchful eye of her mother, coach Jessica Cabato. Kaira is back on the field this spring after knee surgery ended her 2017 season.(Photo: Larry Steagall / Kitsap Sun)Buy Photo

After a year of being unable to play, Kaira Cabato has finally made it back to the softball field.

The Olympic High School senior has been chomping at the bit to get back on the field after a knee injury and subsequent surgery forced her to miss half of her junior season.

Cabato has been playing mostly in the field, at shortstop and third base, with limited at-bats so far this season.

The doctors have not cleared her to run at full speed, but for Kaira, just being back on the field has been a success in itself.

“It was so great,” Kaira said of her first at bat of the season, a single during a March 29 win over Bremerton. “I was so excited to hit. I had to be cleared to do everything, but I still can’t run.”

Cabato is very competitive, just like her mother, Olympic coach Jessica Cabato.

“She just loves to win,” Jessica Cabato said. “She always wants to give 100 percent. She pushes people around her; her experience in irreplaceable.”

Coach Cabato added: “She plays defense fearlessly and is incredibly aggressive. This is what got her recruited. She’s been on the softball field since birth.”

Kaira Cabato injured her left knee last season in a game against Kingston. She was already playing with a torn medial patella ligament, and ended up tearing her anterior cruciate ligament as well. Total reconstructive surgery was required.

Her tibia was shaved down to line up with her patella tendon, and strands of her hamstring were used to build up her ligaments.

Doctors told the family the surgery was supposed to last about two hours. It took four and a half.

After surgery, Kaira wasn’t able to move her left leg on her own for three weeks; Jessica had to move her leg for her just to get her off the couch at home. She missed some time at school, and the medicine she was taking was making her sick.

“Her competitiveness really made it hard for her,” Jessica Cabato said. “She was competing with anything at home.”

Kaira Cabato of Olympic has played primarily in the field while recovering from knee surgery.(Photo: Larry Steagall / Kitsap Sun)

Her desire to play her senior season kept her going throughout the rehabilitation process.

“I knew I was going to get cleared, so that pushed me extra hard,” Kaira Cabato said.

She was finally able to move about on crutches in June. But doctors didn't give her clearance to play until just a few days before the high school season began.

Even so, she couldn’t run at full speed. In her at-bat against Bremerton, she made it to first base before being lifted for a courtesy runner.

Kaira Cabato committed last fall to play at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida, her mother's alma mater. Jessica Cabato played there for coach Lauren Watten when Kaira was two years old. Watten returned to Bethune-Cookman in 2014 after nine years at the University of Maryland.

Kaira remembers being on the B-C campus when her mother played there. “I felt it was a good fit,” she said. “It’s like a family there. It’s so far away. It’s like leaving home without something like home.”

“It felt familiar to her,” Jessica Cabato said about Kaira choosing Bethune-Cookman. “She goes to the campus, and the basketball coach and the athletic director met her there. They remembered who she was on campus. For me, it was keen for a coach that was interested in her. The coach ... cares about her players and guides them through the years."

Buy Photo

Kaira Cabato plans to play next year at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida, which is also her mother's alma mater.(Photo: Larry Steagall / Kitsap Sun)